This should really be a story for our resident Emcee, Khalil Williams, but I beat him to it. Vinyl albums outsold CDs last year for the first time since CDs began overtaking the market.

Vinyl records were once the last bastion of authentic sounds for audiophiles still buying vacuum tube receivers, but an abundance of cheap record players and novelty pushed pressed records to the top. 41 million records were sold in 2022 compared to 33 million CDs. This represents 71% of all physical media revenues and is the 16th consecutive year of growth.

Streaming Still King

The RIAA says revenues for music grew 6% in 2022 to $16 billion with digital streams making up the bulk of it. Digital streaming still dominates physical music formats with over 3.4 trillion, that’s trillion with a ‘T’, streams globally. US listeners streamed 1.14 trillion tracks compared to the 41 million records and 33 million CDs they bought in 2022.

Vinyl’s Not So Small Digital Controversy

Vinyl record are analog music formats. They are susceptible to all of the background hiss, snap, crackle and pop that comes with physical devices making vibrations. Audiophiles swore by the superiority of vinyl records and the master recorded presses new pressing of vinyl derived from. Many audiophiles invested thousands of dollars in expensive, precision weighted turntables and vacuum tube powered amplifiers desperate for the original sounds recorded in the studio.

Last year, MoFi, the US’ top producer of original, authentically pressed vinyl records came under controversy. MoFi claimed to use the original tapes mastered in recording studios to make their pressings. This gave the impression that the music was not digitally compressed and is as close a representation you can get, other than being in the studio during recording.

Lo and behold, MoFi was actually using a streaming technology called Direct Stream Digital technology to capture digital recordings and press those into records. It soon turned into a huge controversy with audiophiles (who couldn’t tell the difference) claiming they were baited into buying inferior recordings.

It Doesn’t Matter

In the end, it didn’t matter. Vinyl records came out on top last year, and are poised to continue their growth. It’s taken forever, but hopefully listeners have become more discerning in their music choices. Dynamic range, subtlety, and rests have disappeared with the onslaught of digital music. Here’s hoping those nuances come back.

-MJ